


Fathers, Be Good

by firefright



Series: Revolution in Parts [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Injustice: Gods Among Us
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bruce Wayne's Parenting, Dick Grayson is Deadwing, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Ghosts, Nobody is Happy in Injustice, Past Relationship(s), Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6060115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce gets an unexpected visitor in the night, one he never thought he'd see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathers, Be Good

"Master Bruce."

It's the middle of the night and Bruce turns at the sound of Alfred's voice, at the faint tremble in it and his poor faithful butler's hands. Something is wrong. Bruce pushes back the throbbing in his temples as he readies himself to deal with it. "Yes, Alfred?"

"There is someone here to see you, sir."

He frowns. The list of people who could and would come to see Bruce is perilously short now, and very rarely would any of them intrude into his private sanctuary without some kind of warning. That coupled with Alfred's trepidation sets him on edge because it can't be the Regime. It it was Alfred would have triggered the alarms. 

Try as he might Bruce can't immediately puzzle it out. "Who?"

"Sir, it's -"

A ghost saunters into the room, and not the one Bruce is most familiar with these days.

"No need to introduce me, Alfie. We're already familiar. Right, old man?"

Bruce is on his feet in moments, his chair toppling to the floor behind him in his haste to stand. It's been years and yet seeing Jason in the flesh now takes him right back to the last time they'd met in Gotham; to memories filled with the smell of smoke and gunpowder, harsh words and empty space. He can scarcely believe he's really here now, alive in front of him.

Shameful as it is to admit, somewhere in the last few terrible years Bruce had resigned himself to letting Jason go. Whether of his own volition or because fighting the Regime's reign of terror gave him no other option. There was no time go seeking reconciliation with a son who both hated him and didn't want to be found amidst the drums of war.

It hadn't been an easy choice, not after Dick and Tim, not after -

Jason was the first child he'd lost.

"How did you find me?" Is the first thing Bruce has to demand, before he can let himself say anything else. He hate's himself for it, but his security is paramount if any hope remains of stopping Kal-El.

Jason's eyes focus intently on him, expressive as ever, now set deep in a face marred with cuts and bruises. He smiles in response to the question, flicking his fingers in a dismissive gesture at Bruce. "I followed my spirit guide. Turns out it's a bird. Shocking, right?"

His chest tightens. _Dick_. The immediate question that springs to mind is why? Why would Dick help Jason find him and how would Dick know where to look for Jason in the first place. So many questions but none of them are the one Bruce asks. "What happened to your face?"

"It's more than just my face, old man." There's a laugh as Jason touches his bruises, traces the wind of a bandage around his skull. He's standing stiffly and Bruce wouldn't be surprised to find cracked or broken ribs under the cover of his armour. "Don't worry, I'm still pretty."

Behind him Alfred makes an aborted movement, as if he has to stop himself from pulling Jason down into the nearest chair so he can inspect his wounds himself. Old habits die hard for all of them.

Bruce just grits his teeth at the avoidance. "Jason."

"Oh fine. I met your last lost bird too. Y'know, the one with the attitude? He broke into my apartment to offer me a place with the dictatorship, seemed to think we had something in common." Jason's eyes sweep up and down Bruce and there's the familiar stab of guilt, now multiplied. 

It's not hard for Bruce to put the pieces together from what Jason's not telling him. "You told him no."

"Old man, that was the least of what I did." Jason laughs harshly, but there's something pained and raw beneath the sound, something Bruce can't identify. "You really fucked up with that one, and this is coming from me."

"If you've come here to mock me you can leave now, Jason. I have more important things to do."

"Like losing to Superman?"

At Bruce's sudden and vicious glare Jason holds up his hands, though his posture and expression scream defiance. "What?" He glares right back, "You going to deny it? You've been on the losing side since this thing started, B, and now you're running on empty, living in shitty excuses for Batcave's like this one, hoping you can come up with a way to defeat the guy who's undefeatable."

Jason always did have a knack for cutting right to the heart of things.

"Superman isn't unstoppable, I just haven't found the right means yet."

"Yeah?" Jason casts a look at Alfred, "You agree with that assessment, Alfred? Think boss man here is doing anything other than getting his ass handed to him and other people killed?"

"Bowing down in the face of tyranny is never acceptable, Master Jason." Alfred says stiffly, mouth turned down in disapproval. Bruce feels a warm rush of gratitude for his continued support. These days it means more than ever.

Jason doesn't look surprised, just irritated. "I'm not arguing that."

"Then what are you arguing?" His impatience is showing, because Bruce can't deal with Jason like this right now. He's grateful he's here, still alive and free, but the fact that Jason's one-sided feud with him is apparently still in full effect leaves a sour taste in Bruce's mouth. He's just so damn tired these days, too tired to fight Jason on top of everything else.

"That you're losing, Bruce!" Jason throws his arms out in an expansive gesture as his voice fills the bunker, "I want you to at least fucking acknowledge it!"

Bruce growls, "What do you think this is, Jason?! I live with that fact every day, I don't require you to throw it in my face! Tell my why you're here, _now_."

He glowers at his estranged son, expecting a fight, and is instead surprised when Jason abruptly seems to deflate, dropping his aggressive stance like excess skin. He looks suddenly just as vulnerable and tired as Bruce feels.

"Damian's offer was... is, well," Jason laughs bitterly, "Still open. And less an offer than a ultimatum. You're with us or you're against us."

There it is. "Jason, I don't know if I can -"

"I know you can't fucking protect me, Bruce! I'm not here to ask for that, Jesus Christ." Jason drags his hand back through his hair, the white trauma streak just as visible as it ever was. "Get off your Goddamn high-horse for a second. I don't need your help, I never have. I can take care of myself."

Bruce has a brief flashback, sudden and vivid, of the homeless twelve year-old with the tire iron declaring the same thing. "Then what is it you need me for, Jason?"

"It's not about me needing you, it's about you needing me." He watches Jason bite his lip, the nervous shuffle of his feet across the floor. He used to do that when he was boy, when his head only came up to the middle of Bruce's chest. "I'm going to call Damian tomorrow and sign myself up to the Regime."

Alfred let's out a quiet gasp. "Jason, you can't!"

"Yeah, I can, and will as a matter of fact. Way I see it I don't exactly have a choice."

"There's always a choice, son." Bruce says quietly, with a sinking feeling at what he knows Jason is going to suggest to him. "You don't have to do this."

Jason shakes his head. There's that look in his eyes again, a fire and a pain that Bruce can't understand. "Yeah, I do. If I go into hiding they start hunting me down, they assume I'm with you and then my life is over anyway. This way..." He gives a Bruce a lopsided grin, "I figure I can at least do something useful towards bringing that son of a bitch down."

"If Kal realises you're working against him he'll kill you, Jason. This is too dangerous."

His son shrugs, like it's nothing. "Can't be any worse than the first time."

Bruce closes the distance between them. He see's Jason's eyes widen in alarm as his hands clamp down on his shoulders, the sudden realisation that he said something that finally went too far passing across his face. The shock stops him from breaking free as Bruce does nothing more than hold him in place.

"You aren't expendable, Jason." Bruce's tongue feels like a lead weight in his mouth. "I don't want you putting yourself at risk like that."

"Who else are you going to get?" His son shakes his head. Maybe it's progress that he hasn't yet attempted to pull away, though his hands are clenched into fists. "No one else in your party can waltz up to Superman and tell him truthfully that they're cool with killing scumbags."

He's right, damn him but he's right. 

Bruce doesn't beg, but he comes close. "Please reconsider this. You've already rejected Damian's offer once, why would they believe that you'd suddenly changed your mind?" 

"A, I have my reasons to think he'll believe me, and B, it's already happening. Whether you accept it or not my mind's made up, so you can take whatever pieces of information I drop you or turn a deaf ear. Your choice."

"You're my _son_."

"That's never stopped you before, so you can cut that bullshit out." Jason glares at him, "It's too late for you to have regrets, B. Too late for any of us."

Bruce tightens his hold, digging his fingers into Jason's shoulders before letting him go. No, he can't afford to say no, or admit to Jason that already has ears on the inside. No one else knows about Luthor and Bruce isn't about to change that now. His life, maybe all their lives, depend on that secrecy.

Jason nods at his silence, reading him easily. "Thought so."

"I don't agree with what you're doing, but I can't stop you from doing it." Bruce's headache returns tenfold as he wrestles with both his conscience and his sense of duty, "I'd rather know where you are than not."

"I don't know if that's sweet or creepy."

Alfred steps in before the conversation can take another turn. "If you'll allow me, sir, I'd like to take a look at those wounds before you leave."

Of the fact that Jason will be leaving there's no question.

Bruce watches long enough to see Jason's expression soften as he gives into the butler's gently phrased demand. He let's himself be shuffled into a chair, sitting patiently still under Alfred's hands as he examines him while Bruce gathers a few things for Jason to take with him.

He's so damn tired of sending children off to war, yet continues to do it anyway.

Dick, Jason, Tim. Their blood and suffering is on Bruce's hands, he turned them into soldiers. The only comfort he has is clinging to the belief that he's doing the right thing. That Jason is still here and maybe, somewhere, Tim can also still be brought home.

Damian on the other hand... he wonders if his youngest son ever stood a chance after Talia and Ra's were done with him. Wonders if there was ever a way Bruce could have stopped him from turning to Kal's side instead.

"Use this communicator and the channel it's tuned to." Bruce says finally, handing the comm over to Jason when he's ready to leave. Jason snorts as he looks down at the tiny piece of tech, smaller than his fingernail.

"Sure, old man."

He turns to go and Bruce catches him by the shoulder again. "Jason... please be careful."

Jason is a ball of tension, a wired explosive of a human being. He shrugs away Bruce's hand before the timer can go off.

"Always am, B. Always am."

Then it's just him and Alfred alone together again. Bruce sinks down into his chair, shoves his face in his hands, and grieves anew for the boy he once knew.

He prays that this time Jason comes back to him alive.

 

*

 

"You should have let me go in with you."

Jason shakes his head. His legs dangle down from the Gotham bridge over the roiling water beneath it. He imagines the cold he feels is the rush of Dick's breath over the back of his neck.

"Jay -"

"I had to do it by myself, Dick." He rolls the tiny communicator between his thumb and index finger, debates throwing it down into the dark waters the same way he sometimes entertains the mad idea of walking out into traffic, or burying himself back under dark earth. It's small enough to hide in all manner of interesting places. "Had to see him for myself."

Dick makes a show of sitting next to him, the soft glow his incorporeal form produces paints an eerie light against Jason's hands. "And?"

Jason shrugs. "He's a mess. What else is new."

It was more than that, Bruce had been wrecked, physically and emotionally, even as he remained steadfast in his cause. He would never know how hard it had been for Jason not to give into his request to stop what he's doing.

Even when he'd hated him the most he'd never wanted to see Bruce look like that.

Dick sighs. "Jason -"

"I'm doing what you wanted me to, Dick. Isn't that enough?" Jason doesn't stop his hair from falling into his eyes as he bows his head. "Don't ask for miracles too. They'll fuck you up every time."

He picks up his helmet from where it's sat next to him. After so many years he has their construction down to an art form and it's not hard to pry open a panel to slip the comm inside. Once put back in place it looks totally seamless. Which, combined with the lead woven into the material, should be enough to keep Jason's dirty little secret hidden from any interested parties.

"I know." Dick swallows and it has to be a reflex, because hell if he actually has to do that anymore.

_Don't think about it._

"Jay."

Jason stops after slipping the helmet back over his head, sparing a final glance to the ghost beside him before he heads back to his bike. "Yeah, Dickiebird?"

"Thank you. I'm proud of you for doing this."

He's glad he put the helmet on before Dick told him that, because it lets Jason have his raw personal reaction to those words privately. Dick doesn't have to see the clench of his jaw, nor the sting of wetness in the corner of his eyes.

"You're still a sappy bastard, Grayson." Jason replies finally. He swings himself down off the bridge to the road before Dick can say another word.

He's got a phone call to make.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey friends! So yes I've decided to write more in this universe, because apparently I'm a masochist and hate myself. Timeline-wise I'm probably going to jump around with events, writing scenes as they come to me. So while the next part will more or less follow on from this one, the one after that will be set quite a bit further into the future. Any gaps will be filled in as and when I have the ideas for them.
> 
> I started a new sideblog on tumblr called [FirefrightFic](http://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/) purely for fic stuff. Prompts are welcome!


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